About a year ago, I made a declaration. I was done writing books. I had written several, flexed that muscle thoroughly, and made peace with the math. More books come out every year than anyone can count, and I had started to wonder whether the world really needed another one from me. Judging from my Amazon sales page, the answer was "no."
But there is something curious about creation for creation's sake. A story had been brewing in my head for more than fifteen years. I began writing it in earnest in 2022, only to shelve it after more than two hundred pages. Then, I picked up an old journal from more than a decade ago and found something I had written to myself. "Write (book title) and don't quit until it's finished."
I am not ready to reveal what the “blank” stands for yet, the title will be revealed when the book is closer to completion. (We call this building suspense!)
This book chose me. And I know there is a likely chance that no one will ever read it, and I have made peace with that too. I finally understood that sometimes we have to create even if we are the only one who ever enjoys it. The act of creation is its own reason.
On April 19, I sat down and began building the architecture for the novel which took three weeks. April 19 was Akshaya Tritiya, the one day a year in Vedic tradition when the Sun and Moon are both exalted at once. A day whose name means that which cannot be destroyed. When a day is this powerful, you choose it deliberately. That's what I did.
A few weeks ago, I began writing the prose, one true sentence at a time. I am twenty pages in. The novel exists now whether I intended it to or not.
I am excited about telling you more about this project. My feeling is this will be my last book although I will tell you that making bold declarations about what you are finished doing is a reliable way to discover what you are not finished doing. The universe has a long memory and a sense of humor, and it does not particularly care what you announced.
With all this in mind, if something has been nagging at you, that is not an accident. The things that refuse to leave are usually the things that were always meant to be pursued. Write that book. Record that song. Start that business. Paint that painting. Take a dance class. Whatever it is, answer the door. Your dreams are there for a reason. And if you'd like, share your dream with me.
The seawall lamps were still doing their work in the last hour before they were no longer needed, throwing their warm circles onto the empty concrete the way they had done all night for no one in particular, which is the kind of faithfulness that goes unnoticed and is no less faithful for it. The sky above the Gulf had gone from black to that deep bruised red that arrives before the orange and the orange before the yellow and the yellow before the sun itself, each color announcing the next the way a good story announces its ending long before you arrive there. The sidewalk stretched toward the city on one end and toward the quiet end of the island on the other with nobody on it, and the Gulf lay dark beyond the seawall and the morning was assembling itself one color at a time with the patience of something that has done this before and knows it will come out right.
There is an hour on the island that belongs to no one and therefore belongs to everyone, the hour when the night workers have gone home and the day has not yet called anyone out of bed, when the seawall is a private thing and the Gulf is a private thing, and if you are awake for it you feel less like a witness and more like a conspirator, as though the island has let you in on something it keeps from the crowds. The lamps will go dark when the sun arrives and the sidewalk will fill and the day will make its usual demands, but in this hour the concrete is yours and the horizon is yours and the red burning line where the water meets the coming light is the only appointment that matters.
I’ve spent most of my life onstage, telling stories for laughs and feeling a room shift in real time. For twenty five years I hosted an improvisational show called Four Day Weekend, and that stage felt like home. In 2020 the world shifted, and so did I. The questions of the world began to matter more to me than comedy, and I turned toward writing about life's greater mysteries, finishing We’ll Always Have Paris and later Quietude, which became a quiet turning point in my life. Exploring The 12 Universal Laws widened the lens even more. Now the island reflections and everyday synchronicities I share carry one intention, which is to help you awaken to your highest potential. I am not here to convince or impress you. I simply hope to brighten your day, invite you to question what you have been told, and remind you of what you already know. Each morning I return to the same ground. I am awake. I am aware. I am able. I remember. Everything I share grows from there.